What I’ve been reading

The Story of Silver, by um…William Silber, probably is the best book on silver, as I suppose it should be.  How many other books have this same property of coincidence of name and topic?  Did James Igel ever write a book on hedgehogs?

Adrian Tinniswood, The Royal Society & the Invention of Modern Science is the best short introduction to its stated topic.

Linn Ullmann, Unquiet: A Novel.  A novel, yes, but also a not so thinly veiled memoir of life with her two very famous parents Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann.  Fantastic if you already know the back story, but at the very least readable if you don’t.

Kenneth M. Pollack, Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness.  Pollack takes a look at the systematic dysfunctionalities behind Arab militaries, arguing most of them have been worse than the North Korean or Somalian fighting forces.  Jordan in 1948, Hizbullah, and early ISIS are the main exceptions here, British training in the former case being a factor and morale a factor in the latter two cases.

Andrew S. Curran, Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely.  A good filling-in of what were to me many blanks in the life of Diderot, a figure whom I never can decide whether he is underrated or overrated.

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